Grass Stains

I had an amazing day yesterday! I walked from my hotel to Smile Africa, which is roughly about a 4 mile walk! That was the perfect way to start the day. As soon as I arrived, I went straight to the babies room, as usual. Bogere came in shortly after. I greeted him, gave him a hug and handed him his breakfast. I didn't leave that room at all for the first part of the day. I wanted to give the teachers as much of a break as I could. After my lunch break I came back to see Bogere in the baby's room feeding his little brother! This is huge progress. He doesn't usually like to share me with other children, especially not his own family, but now he brought his little brother to hang out with us and he was feeding him lunch as well. This was amazing! I was very proud of my sweet boy.

After lunch I decided that I was going to spend the rest of the day with the older kids that were playing outside. I went outside and we sang and danced and played games. It was so much fun! Bogere does not usually like to play like this with the other kids. He talks to them and laughs sometimes, but he doesn't usually play with them. Yesterday was a different story though! Bogere was running around with the other kids and making them laugh and he was singing with us! It was so great to see him interacting with the other children in a positive way. I grabbed the hands of 2 of the girls and we went skipping down the grassy hill. All of the other kids followed and then we started running and they chased us. Everyone was having so much fun! I taught the kids how to flip after that. They thought that was the coolest thing! Once I taught them how, I could not get them to stop! It was a really great moment for everyone. While all the kids were flipping all over the grass, I look around to find Bogere and I couldn't find him! Then a little girl points up and says, "Auntie Paris, Look!" Sure enough, there was Bogere. He climbed a metal pole and went to the top of the building! 

This day was very exhausting, but so much fun! I am so glad that I got to spend so much time with all the other children as well. Once I got back to the hotel I noticed massive amounts of grass stains on my pants from rolling and flipping on the grass. I washed my clothes and Bogere's clothes in my washing bucket. And guess what?! I got the stains out with a simple bar of soap! I'm getting pretty good at this whole washing clothes by hand thing! :) As I got in bed, I prayed for my new friends and I was really looking forward to seeing them in the morning! Thank you Jesus for giving me a lot of energy and patience!

These are my new friends :)